Chills Explanations

specific moments in music where background instruments fade out, leaving one or two instruments playing alone. A final aspect of musical relationships is that of social narratives, linked to lyrics describing love, feelings of loss, and music that resembles a person’s cry for help, or the idea of reconciliation.

The entrance of new instruments reflects moments in a piece where a new instrument or voice enters, such as guitars kicking in, trumpets taking the tune, and strings entering.

Finally, transition and change encapsulates moments of structural transitions or alterations. Some examples include changes in dynamics, meter, tonality, and meta-structure such as moving from a bridge to a chorus.

4.3.4 Chills Explanations

A final exploratory question asked participants to explain why they experienced chills.

Some supplementary data were collected, with 308 codes grouped into three main themes of relationships, musical parameters, and evoking memories.

In the relationships theme, participants suggested that chills occur when the music and words are relatable, mirroring one’s life or reflecting previous experiences.

Music is sometimes described as speaking to the listener, offering support or comfort and sharing a personal bond and connection, whereas other participants note that empathy for a performer or character in the narrative underlies the chills response:

‘An almost hypnotic feeling. I want to close my eyes and just feel the music all around me. That feeling of the hairs standing on the back of your neck. It's a pleasurable experience; an intense connection with the music. I can feel it now if I close my eyes.’ (Participant 261)

‘I felt comforted by the various movements in the piece (instrumental).’

(Participant 371)

‘I felt touched, moved. And perhaps inspired in a way, too. I think that listening to those first few lines made me realise that in a way I was like the protagonist of the song and it also reminded me of one of my favourite fictional characters.’ (Participant 9)

Finally, aspects of love and interpersonal relationships are highlighted, and how these are expressed in music.

Musical parameters is a theme comprised of varied explanations referring to specific musical features linked to chills, including build ups, climaxes and chord structures. The clearest trend however is reference to the human voice as being a common elicitor of chills.

The final theme of evoking memories has rarely been highlighted in the survey, but reflects extra-musical processes characterising music as a retrieval cue for emotional memories; there were no trends in the specificity of reported memories.

Figure 4.5: Diagram of five main themes and most frequent codes for specific chills moments in music;

numbers in parentheses indicate the number of codes extracted from the raw data.

Specific

4.4 Discussion

This first study of this dissertation aimed to provide a novel, direct investigation into numerous characteristics of musically-induced chills, and the results represent an advancement in knowledge of emotional qualities, prevalent listening situations, and a larger selection of music and features that elicit chills in listeners. Generally, participants experienced chills at a frequency of every few months to weekly;

furthermore, chills responders were characterised by high scores in the openness to experience personality trait, supporting previous research (Colver & El-Alayli, 2016;

McCrae, 2007; Nusbaum & Silvia, 2011). Chills often occurred when listening alone, whilst concert environments were also reported frequently; interestingly, although rare, some participants reported experiencing chills whilst performing certain pieces.

Participants took part from numerous locations in the world, and varied in terms of age, instrumental playing, and occupation, resulting in a more representative sample than previous investigations into chills; conversely, over 350 different pieces of music linked to chills were reported across the participants, reflecting a diverse collection of styles and genres in comparison to existing correlational work.

Central findings concern the emotional characteristics of chills, a significant limitation in existing research. Chills have been linked to peak pleasure (Blood &

Zatorre, 2001), strong emotions (Gabrielsson, 2011; Rickard, 2004), and being moved (Benedek & Kaernbach, 2011; Wassiliwizky et al., 2015). Considering this previous research, and a working definition of chills provided to participants, it is not surprising to see emotions as a central theme in the survey; however, until now the specific emotional qualities of chills had not received empirical attention. The survey collected novel data that demonstrated for the first time that musical chills are often described directly as an overwhelming, strong experience, frequently containing mixed

emotions such as an amalgam of happiness and sadness; it is also worth noting that being moved or touched were the most common descriptors used by participants in their open-ended responses. These results reflect existing literature, but develop from the ideas that certain emotional states are accompanied by chills, to assess specifically how listeners describe their chills responses to music.

Of the musical selections referenced in the survey, consistencies were evident in salient musical features and specific chills moments in the pieces. The human voice was frequently noted by participants, alongside emotional expressions perceived in the music. Further features associated with chills included crescendos, swells and climaxes, linked to increases in emotional arousal that may be conducive to chills (Rickard, 2004; Salimpoor et al., 2009). Finally, chills were associated with interactions and relationships perceived between instruments, performers or characters in the music. Although dynamic changes, unprepared harmonies and the entrance of new instruments have been linked to chills (Grewe et al., 2007; Sloboda, 1991), rarely has reference been made to moments when full orchestras unite, singers blend into harmony, or larger groups of performers begin chanting. Indeed, novel data regarding musical features is portrayed in themes of musical relationships and interactions, covering aspects of unity, blending, and developing relationships between solo and accompaniment instruments (though see Guhn et al., 2007).

This first study may begin to inform theories and conceptualisations of musical chills. With regards to the vigilance theory of chills, there are certainly reported musical characteristics that may elicit mechanisms such as brain stem reflexes, musical expectancy and auditory looming, including crescendos, build ups and unexpected chord changes. These processes are mainly linked to the arousal dimension of affective response (Russell, 1980; Steinbeis et al., 2006); however,

arousal levels are not sufficiently nuanced to explain the emotional experiences identified in this survey. Furthermore, the lack of a stimulus-response pattern in musical chills suggests that automatic survival mechanisms implicated in vigilance theory may not be pervasively central to the experience; to address this, investigations need to move beyond correlative work and systematically test musical chills to better understand these processes, and how they might differ across individuals. Despite these issues, crescendos and build ups were common in chills moments, reflecting most existing research (Grewe et al., 2007; Guhn et al., 2007; Panksepp, 1995;

Sloboda, 1991); any underlying processes linked to these features should be considered in theoretical contexts.

The enigmatic concept of awe has also been linked to chills (Keltner & Haidt, 2003; Konečni, 2005; Schurtz et al., 2012; Shiota et al., 2007), possibly in relation to fear and vigilance processes, although this remains unclear. Consistent features in the survey such as crescendos may be related to awe, and in fact numerous participants reported feeling overwhelmed by the music in some way, perhaps due to the perception of grandeur or feelings of subordination to the musical object. The appreciation of artistic skill and musical excellence was reported in the survey, and this interpersonal, social appreciation has previously been discussed in terms of awe and admiration, with physiological indices including gooseflesh and warmth in the chest (Algoe & Haidt, 2009). However, further research is required in characterising awe, and understanding its possible connection to chills.

Several results across this first survey may also implicate the social bonding theory of chills, linked to mixed states of being moved (Menninghaus et al., 2015) the broader concept of kama muta (Fiske et al., 2017), and intensified communal sharing relations. Numerous participants explicitly referred to feeling moved or touched, with

some stating feelings of happiness occurring with sadness. Being moved has elsewhere been linked to prosocial cues and significant life events, involving social scenarios such as weddings or funerals (Hanich, Wagner, Shah, Jacobsen &

Menninghaus, 2014; Menninghaus et al., 2015); some of these idiosyncratic events were described by participants, such as a piece of chills music being played previously at their father’s funeral. Interestingly, the prevalence of the human voice, lyrics and musical relationships in specific chills moments suggests a role of social aspects underpinning chills. The human voice may resemble distress vocalisations that motivate social reunion (Panksepp, 1995); furthermore, the voice is innately more social, communicative and contagious than other instruments, evidenced through mirror neuron activity and perception-action loops (Davies, 2011; Molnar-Szakacs &

Overy, 2006; Rizzolatti & Sinigaglia, 2016). As we better understand human action, emotional expression is strongly communicated by the voice, potentially allowing for social processes such as empathy at the level of the person or character that the voice belongs to (Clarke et al., 2015). Lyrics often describe explicit narratives, and can be relatable and understood in similar ways to literature or film; however, this prevalent aspect of modern music is often avoided, given the difficulties of understanding combined effects of linguistic and musical parameters (Ali & Peynircioglu, 2006;

Fiveash & Luck, 2016). Regardless, specific lyrics quoted in the survey touched on topics of love and loss; these are often judged as relatable by listeners, highlighting the possible presence of empathic processes, social bonding, and intensification of communal sharing relations. Finally, the theme of musical relationships may be contextualised in terms of social cues and cognition, although it is unclear as to how these processes operate in complex musical situations. However, it appears intuitive to treat moments of musical union, such as full orchestras coming into the music

together, as social; for example, these moments may reflect a third-person, observed intensification of communal sharing relations implicated in experiences of being moved and kama muta (Fiske et al., 2017). Additionally, interactions highlighted between solo and accompaniment instruments could be perceived in terms of interpersonal support and cooperation; Haidt (2003) suggested that the positive emotion of elevation, like being moved, is elicited by observed acts of altruism and moral virtue. Although little empirical research exists in the context of music, recent research suggests that social cues are identified by listeners in improvised duets (Aucouturier & Canonne, 2017), and perceiving these cues may be important in understanding chills as a response to social bonding, empathy and being moved.

Beyond perceiving social cues and interactions in music, some participants describe experiences in which they connect or interact with the music in some way; music can comfort the listener, a listener can feel empathy for characters or identities in the music, and in various instances listeners described personal bonds with the music.

This type of experience has been highlighted in the musical chills context before, with listeners having the sensation of ‘being one’ with the music during chills (Laeng et al., 2016). Interestingly, these accounts can sometimes be understood as listeners anthropomorphising a piece of music, and experiencing a parasocial relationship with it. This is not dissimilar from social surrogacy, in which people use images, television and music to temporarily replace social relationships in their absence (Derrick, Gabriel & Hugenberg, 2009; Gabriel & Young, 2011; Gardner, Pickett & Knowles, 2005; Schäfer & Eerola, 2018). This may be an intuitive reaction to moments of social isolation, to satisfy the need for belonging (Maslow, 1943), and in the context of social bonding theory, music as a social surrogate may be poised to elicit the chills response through intensified communal sharing relations. However, like discussions regarding

structural changes and vigilance processes, further research is required to progress from theoretical conjecture. These novel results are crucial for the existing state of research on musical chills; until now, most links between chills and music were based on structural change and development, but it is evident that when referring to a different, more representative corpus of music associated with chills, including contemporary popular music for example, there are many other potential elicitors that do not intuitively fit the narrative of vigilance theory.

Although consistencies were found in the survey, there is also wide variability across participants, in terms of feelings, situations and musical moments linked to chills. Furthermore, numerous musical aspects highlighted above are not easily reconciled in terms of similarities between them; it does not seem intuitive that crescendos and lyrics activate the same psychological processes in listeners, nor does it appear that a single theory or proposed mechanism is currently capable of accommodating the variety of musical elicitors linked to chills. The current study adopted a necessarily broad approach, but given the variability of responses, it is reasonable to suggest that musical chills do not specify a singular emotional response (Levinson, 2006; Maruskin et al., 2012; Panksepp, 1995; Pelowski et al., 2017);

instead, these experiences may be phenomenologically distinct, depending on whether chills are elicited by dynamic changes, lyrics, human voices, or expectancy mechanisms. Physiological activity accompanying chills varied from tears, to warm feelings in the chest; interestingly, both responses and sensations have been linked to aesthetic and social awe respectively (Algoe & Haidt, 2009; Braud, 2001). These additional physical responses, not normally encapsulated by chills, may provide important clues regarding the differences in emotional experience, especially given recent work highlighting how different emotions might be felt in varying locations of

the body (Nummenmaa, Hari, Hietanen & Glerean, 2018), and proposed phenomenological distinctions between tears and chills (Mori & Iwanaga, 2017).

4.5 Summary

To conclude the first study of the current dissertation, this survey has provided the first direct investigation of musically-induced chills in terms of emotional qualities, listening situations, and the variety of music and musical features that elicit the response. In turn, three limitations have been addressed, through revealing the emotional characteristics of musical chills, understanding more broadly the situations in which they occur, and finally developing a broader, comprehensive picture of the music that can elicit chills in listeners, and the wide variety of features linked to the response. The survey highlighted various aspects of the experience, such as chills being described as strong, overwhelming, and mixed emotional states. Musical aspects including dynamic changes have been linked to chills, supporting previous literature and the vigilance theory of the response; however, much of the present data can be interpreted in terms of social cues and processes, such as empathy with performers or characters in a narrative, and perceiving social interactions within a piece of music. The human voice is often linked to chills, possibly mimicking social separation calls (Panksepp, 1995), or activating contagion and empathic processes (Juslin, 2001; Juslin & Västfjäll, 2008). Solo and accompaniment relationships are also reported as eliciting chills, which is speculatively contextualised in terms of perceiving social cues of support and cooperation between individuals or characters;

these features appear to be aligned more closely with the social bonding theory of chills. Findings suggest that it may be difficult for one theory to accommodate the variety of elicitors and potential psychological processes underlying chills, reflecting

the broader variation found across existing research reviewed in Chapter 3.

Furthermore, the variability of results within the survey suggests that experiences of chills may be phenomenologically distinct from one another, and this may depend on eliciting musical features, characteristics of the listener, and the listening situation. It appears that conceptualising musical chills as a general indicator of peak pleasure is not sufficient for understanding the phenomenon.

5. Suppressing the Chills: Effects of Musical Manipulation